At the very edge of the forest, the old man staggered and tripped upon his long gown, and fell face to earth, so that the foremost of his pursuers tumbled over him. Dickon had a momentary glimpse of a reverend white head and long, snowy beard kicked on the ground among iron boots, and of a half-dozen furious men fighting over what seemed already to be a lifeless body. Then he heard a hoarse voice cry out, "The lad has the jewels! After him! After him!" and two of these robbers plunged on in headlong pursuit of the fugitive boy. What Dickon had seen thus swiftly had served to slacken his pace for but a moment, and now that he gave chase again he was nearer to the child victim than were the others. As he rushed through the thick tangle of woodland, he could see that the boy ahead bore under his arm a casket, the weight of which so wore upon his frail strength that his flight could last but a little longer. Then it came that Dickon was between the strange lad and his pursuers, being very close to both, and was turned in hot resolve to face these murderers, with his crossbow strung and levelled. It seemed to cover only a blinded and whirling instant of time--this struggle which enveloped him. Dickon sent his square-headed bolt with a twang! straight into the throat of him who, panting and red-eyed, led the chase. As this one threw up his knees and pitched forward, the young archer sprang fiercely over the body, and fell with the fury of despair upon the other. There was a terrible brief wrestle upon the frosted leaves and moss. Then the second ruffian lay suddenly still. Dickon stood in trembling amaze for a little, staring down upon these twain, whom he had in a frenzied second put beyond further combat. He shook like any winter leaf as he looked, and his legs bent beneath him--for this foremost dead man was Morgan, the very bone and sinew of Egswith's dread band. To be burned alive were the lightest vengeance for such a trick as this. Dickon now thought of flight. Turning in haste, he saw before him the boy with the casket, standing at the entrance to a rocky glade just beyond, and looking out upon him with a white face. He moved swiftly to him, and laid hold upon the box. "Speed for your life!" he hissed; and then the pair, with no further word, set forth in a breathless stumbling race through the forest. Before long the echoes of savage shouts at the rear rang over the thicket, but the hunted lads only shivered in silence and pressed on. Then the cries died away, and there was no sound in all the woodland save the rustle of their hurried footsteps. At last, when they had crossed a second valley, and had arrived at a hill upon which tall fir trees grew sparsely, and the ground was spread with a dense carpet of dry spines, the strange boy threw himself to the earth. "Further I may not stir," he groaned, and put his head down upon the soft pine-needles in utter weakness.